Secure, policy-based communications security and file sharing across mixed media, mixed-communications modalities and extensible to cloud computing such as soa

ABSTRACT

A system and method are provided to monitor and prevent potential enterprise policy and/or rule violations by subscribers.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The present application claims the benefits of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 61/306,685, filed Feb. 22, 2010, of the same title,which is incorporated herein by this reference in its entirety.

FIELD

The disclosure relates generally to enterprise networks and particularlyto automated policy creation, monitoring, tracking, enforcement, andremediation of policy violations.

BACKGROUND

Control of sensitive communications traffic, files, and other content isa well-known problem. There are many products that address a portion ofthe problem. A completely secure, fully extensible solution is not knownand may never be available. This is due to photographic, paper copy,word-of-mouth, and other difficult-to-control information distributionmechanisms.

Virtual Private Networks (“VPN”) provide communications among arestricted group via a logical overlay on top of an existing network.Tunnels, or secure links between nodes of the VPN, are created throughthe underlying network. While VPNs can make use of authentication andencryption, such features are not a mandatory part of such a system.

Two major variations on the VPN theme exist. A “Secure VPN” limitsaccess to communications among the restricted group with positiveauthentication and file encryption using such protocols as InternetProtocol Security (“IPSec”), Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (“PPTP”),and Secure Sockets Layer (“SSL”). Secure VPNs are the defecto standardfor off-site communications for enterprises and other organizations whoneed security features while using the internet. The other form of VPNis the “Trusted VPN”, which typically guarantees a certain Quality ofService (“QoS”). Protocols for trusted VPNs include, but are not limitedto Asynchronous Transfer Mode (“ATM”), Frame Relay, and MultiProtocolLabel Switching (“MPLS”). Secure VPNs do not address communication andattachment distribution, access control, use, tracking, controlledexternal release of certain information, or timed distribution withconsideration of other temporal events. Secure VPNs do not extend easilyto parties outside of the VPN trust circle (external to the firewall)without incurring additional security risks. VPNs do not consider thenature of threats or information leaks that are specific to, and uniqueamong, certain modes or media of communications. Further, VPNs do notapply to all forms of communications.

Document control systems seek to provide a single source documentdepository with change management and version control. Some of thedocuments are available only to a controlled audience within anenterprise firewall, while others are available to all enterprisebusiness associates, and still others may be publicly available. Such asystem helps substantially with documentation compliance issues, butfalls short of helping with the overall control of sensitivecommunications traffic and content within a controlled group because itis not extensible to communications traffic. Further, there is notracking of documents once copied from the document control system.

There are companies dedicated to Data Loss Protection (“DLP”), likeSophos (Ultimaco). Sophos offers an enterprise wide security systemcalled SafeGuard Enterprise 5.40™ featuring DLP, device encryption(including removable media), data exchange, configuration protection,partner connection capabilities, file sharing, and remote workerencrypted data access and sharing, all configured around a centralizedmanagement center hub that can do role-based policy enforcement,centralized management, and data reporting. Sophos also offers LANCrypt™that allows the extension of confidential data protection to fileservers and network shares. Sophos offers these capabilities by loadingsoftware on mobile and stationary devices and running encryption on allfiles contained on such devices. Therefore, it is essentially anend-point or device-based data security system that can be extended toservers and email via additional software products. It has thedisadvantage associated with full encryption, namely a substantialprocessing burden added to the entire enterprise. It has the advantagethat it integrates with industry leading Operating System/PersonalComputer (“OS/PC”) security features such as Microsoft (“MS”) WindowsVista™ and Win? BitLocker™ drive encryption or Lenovo ThinkVantage™security. Sophos also has secure storage, exchange and recovery ofencrypted data across mixed device and operating system environmentsthrough superior key management. Sophos offers SafeGuard PrivateCrypto™functionality, which allows secure file and email attachment exchangewith company user groups without requiring additional passwords.

While the Sophos suite of security features is the industry leadingpackage, it has significant overhead in terms of the time required toload the software, encrypt the files, and manage all of the end points.It is not easily extensible to Service-Oriented Archectures (“SOA”) andthe emerging standards there. It is designed more for external threatmanagement (enterprise penetration and malware introduction) and deviceloss than it is for a coordinated, secure, policy-based communicationsenvironment application with mixed media and the full gamut ofcollaboration mechanisms. It also falls short of a full enterprisesecurity application by not covering all forms of voice and video,social networks, blogs/microblogs, and other non email-basedcommunications. Therefore, while it is a powerful suite of products, itdoes not provide a system that is secure when all communications media,modalities and architectures are fully considered. Finally, it does notintegrate with existing document control systems and voice encryptionsystems.

Real time and packet-based voice communications security systems arealso known. They require either proprietary hardware or softwareinstallation. Some are half-duplex and others are full duplex. They canapply to wire line Public Switch Telephone Network (“PSTN”), to wirelessPSTN, or radio-based standards. Some apply to real time (Time DivisionMultiplexing (“TDM”) or other modulation schemes), while others apply toVoice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) and other non-real time voice.None of the publicly available systems audit and track suchcommunication sessions or positively authenticate all parties in acomplex real time session, such as a conference call with multiplelocations and multiple parties at each location. No known voiceencryption system coordinates with other security products to enforceoverall communications security.

Service-oriented architecture (“SOA”) allow different ways to developapplications by combining services. The main premise of SOA is to eraseapplication boundaries and technology differences. As applications areopened up, however, security becomes an issue. Traditionally, securitymodels have been hardcoded into applications, and, when the capabilitiesof an application are opened up for use by other applications, thesecurity models built into each application may not be good enough.Several emerging technologies and standards attempt to address differentaspects of the problem of security in SOA. Standards such as Web ServiceSecurity (“WS-Security”), Security Assertion Markup Language (“SAML”),Web Service Trust (“WS-Trust”), Web ServiceSecureConversation and WebService SecurityPolicy focus on the security and identity managementaspects of SOA implementations that use web services. Technologies suchas the Virtual Organization in Grid Computing, Application-orientednetworking (“AON”) and extensible markup language (“XML”) gatewaysaddress the problem of SOA security in the larger context as well.

XML Gateways are hardware or software-based solutions for enforcingidentity and security for Simple Object Access Protocol (“SOAP”), XML,and Representation State Transfer (“REST”) based web services, usuallyat the network perimeter. An XML gateway is a dedicated application,which allows for a more centralized approach to security and identityenforcement similar to how a protocol firewall is deployed at theperimeter of a network for centralized access control at the connectionand port levels. XML Gateway SOA Security features include Private KeyInfrastructure (“PKI”), Digital Signature, Encryption, XML SchemaValidation, Antivirus, and Pattern Recognition. Regulatory certificationfor XML gateway security features are provided by Federal InformationProcessing Standard (“FIPS”) and Department of Defense (“DoD”). Whileissues specific to SOA security are being considered and proposed asstandards, there is no proposal for integration of such protocols andstandards into the overall fabric of communications security orrationalizing the differences required of SOA when one considers thefull gamut of media, mode, venue and the like.

When one considers the security implications of advanced communicationsand collaboration paradigms such as Google Wave™, the overall securityproblem becomes even more complex. The reason for this is that Waveusers can attach documents where some may be protected and others arenot. All such attachments are made available to the members of the Wave.Google Wave enforces security via an invite or participatory paradigmwhere the act of adding a party to a Wave or Wavelet authorizes thatparty to have access to, and contribute to, the contents therein. Bynature of an invite or participatory security system, one createsdisconnects with other security systems that are administrative orcontrol-based. In addition, Google Wave provides little protectionagainst the participants not adhering to enterprise or otherorganizational security guidelines. As a result, Google Wave presentsanother disjointed and incompatible security system that is not undercurrent centralized control.

SUMMARY

These and other needs are addressed by the various aspects, embodiments,and/or configurations of the present disclosure. The present disclosurerelates to policy compliance monitoring and/or enforcement, particularlyin enterprise networks.

In one embodiment, an enterprise network has a plurality of subscribers,a plurality of nodes, and a policy enforcement server to enforce policesand/or rules of an enterprise corresponding to the enterprise network.Each node includes a respective policy agent to monitor and/or trackbehavior of the corresponding node and/or a subscriber associated withthe corresponding node. A first policy agent of the plurality of policyagents corresponds to a first node and first subscriber and identifies abehavioral instance potentially relevant to a policy and/or rule. Thefirst policy agent notifies the policy enforcement server of thedetermined behavioral instance, and the policy enforcement serverapplies a policy and/or rule to the determined behavioral instance,whereby a policy measure is implemented.

In one configuration, the behavioral instance is the first subscriberintending to make one or more of a selected communication and contentaccessible to one or more selected parties. In response, the policyenforcement server performs the sub-operations of:

receiving a policy tag respecting one or more of the selectedcommunication and content;

determining, based on the policy tag, an applicable policy and/or rule;and

determining, based on the applicable policy and/or rule, a policymeasure to be implemented.

The machine readable policy tag can include a variety of differing typesof information. For example, the policy tag can include one or more ofthe following:

a subscriber and/or role persona field defining a persona and/or role ofthe subscriber at the time of the actual or potential violation;

a nonsubscriber and/or role persona field defining a persona and/or roleof a nonsubscriber involved in and at the time of the actual orpotential violation;

a degree of trust field defining a degree of the subscriber with aperson and/or computational entity having or to have access to aselected communication and/or content associated with the actual orpotential violation, the person and/or computational entity beinginvolved in the actual or potential rule violation;

an existing policy and/or rule compliance measure field describing ameasure currently in place to comply with the actually or potentiallyviolated rule and/or policy;

a venue field defining a degree of public exposure and/or security of anintended recipient of the selected communication and/or content, theintended recipient being involved in the actual or potential violation;

a context field describing a context of the subscriber and/or otherentity having access to the selected communication and/or content;

a content description field describing the selected communication and/orcontent, the content description describing the content in terms of therule and/or policy actually or potentially violated;

a policy and/or rule field identifying the policy and/or rule actuallyor potentially violated; and

a recommendation and/or decision field indicating a recommended actionto be taken in response to the actual or potential violation.

In another embodiment, a communication node includes:

a policy agent to search, analyze, and/or tag one or more of a selectedcommunication and content to identify an actual or potential policyand/or rule violation and report the actual or potential policy and/orrule violation to a policy enforcement server.

In one configuration, the policy agent inspects a plurality of emails,instant messages, live voice communications, voice messages, electronicdocuments, and Web browsing sessions, and generates a policy tagassociated with one or more of the selected communication and content.

In one configuration, the policy agent is implemented in a driver, witha class driver being preferred.

The policy agent can implement a policy measure, typically received fromthe policy enforcement server, to address an actual or potential policyor rule violation. The policy measure commonly includes one or more ofthe following:

modification of an existing security measure for one or more of theselected communication and/or content,

implementation of a new and/or additional security measure for theselected communication and content,

use of a different network path and/or channel than currently chosen toeffect transmission or transfer of one or more of the selected,communication and content,

block, delay, and/or buffer the one or more of the selectedcommunication and content,

embed a flag indicating an area of redundant and processor intensiveencryption or security transcoding,

prevent access of one or more of the selected communication and contentby one or more selected parties,

prevent a subscriber from selecting the selected content into acommunication,

provide read-only access to one or more of the selected communicationand content,

set a hop restriction on one or more of the selected communication andcontent whereby, when the hop restriction is met or exceeded and/or ahop counter is incremented or decremented to a selected value, the oneor more of the selected communication and content is dropped orotherwise prohibited from delivery to an intended recipient,

tear down a communication channel before transmission of one or more ofthe selected communication and content,

redirect one or more of the selected communication and content to adifferent destination, and

display different portions of one or more of the selected communicationand content to different selected parties based on a respective degreeof trust or privilege of each party.

The disclosed aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations can provideoverall policy and rule compliance monitoring and enforcement,particularly communications security control for both the telephony andcomputing worlds. The overall communications security control could be asingle processor complex or a combination of existing processors workingtogether using suitable protocols, such as XML, SIP and others. It couldbe made up of centralized, hierarchical, or distributed equivalentnodes. This can be done with security federation by forming trustedcomputing groups for multiple domains (logical or physical), each havingdifferent security requirements or parameters. Federation requires acommon language to describe the features and the ability to eitherprocess the communications for the network, application, or architectureor, alternatively, allow the sender to do this via input duringcomposition of the selected communication and/or content.

The policy enforcement server can detect and rationalize (via policy andsecurity transcoding) previously incompatible security schemes, such asthose for SOA, Google Wave™, and others. The policy enforcement serverwould know, by enterprise structure or federation, the security methodof the underlying network, application or architecture. Based on anumber of factors, such as network boundary traversal and the identitiesof the sender and the recipient(s), the policy enforcement server candetermine whether encryption, deletion (of the communication and/orselect attachments), avoidance of redundant security transcoding, orother action is required.

The present disclosure can provide a number of other advantagesdepending on the particular aspect, embodiment, and/or configuration.For example, the policy enforcement server can address communication andattachment distribution, access control, use, tracking, controlledexternal release of certain information, and timed distribution withconsideration of other temporal events. The security mechanisms canextend readily to parties outside of the VPN trust circle (external tothe firewall) without incurring additional security risks. The policyenforcement server can consider the nature of threats or informationleaks that are specific to, and unique among, certain modes or media ofcommunications. The policy enforcement server can sense and evaluate thenature of the threat and forward broadcast announcements in the format,via the best media, and based on the user's presence and location toalert the user. For example, if a threat is detected in the emailserver(s) and a particular user is detected via presence at a mobilephone, a call to that mobile phone number may allow the user to reactand take the appropriate actions with regard to their email prior tobeing impacted by the threat.

These and yet other advantages will be apparent from the disclosure.

The phrases “at least one”, “one or more”, and “and/or” are open-endedexpressions that are both conjunctive and disjunctive in operation. Forexample, each of the expressions “at least one of A, B and C”, “at leastone of A, B, or C”, “one or more of A, B, and C”, “one or more of A, B,or C” and “A, B, and/or C” means A alone, B alone, C alone, A and Btogether, A and C together, B and C together, or A, B and C together.

The term “a” or “an” entity refers to one or more of that entity. Assuch, the terms “a” (or “an”), “one or more” and “at least one” can beused interchangeably herein. It is also to be noted that the terms“comprising”, “including”, and “having” can be used interchangeably.

The terms “application”, “application program”, and “softwareapplication” refer to software that is used for business orentertainment. The terms refer to virtually any type of program,including spreadsheets such as Excel™, word processors such as Word™,communication modules such as Avaya Softphone™, instant messagingplatforms, and e-mail platforms, personal information managers, mediaplayers such as iTunes™, Web browsers such as Internet Explorer™, andvirtual reality games such as Second Life™. However, the term generallyexcludes essential control software such as the operating system.

The term “automatic” and variations thereof, as used herein, refers toany process or operation done without material human input when theprocess or operation is performed. However, a process or operation canbe automatic, even though performance of the process or operation usesmaterial or immaterial human input, if the input is received beforeperformance of the process or operation. Human input is deemed to bematerial if such input influences how the process or operation will beperformed. Human input that consents to the performance of the processor operation is not deemed to be “material”.

The term “call log” refers to a collection, or list, of inbound and/oroutbound calls. A call is typically described by timestamp (e.g., dateand time of day of call set up, termination, or receipt), call duration,called number, calling number, callee identity, and/or caller identity.

A “class driver” is a type of driver that can operate a large number ofdifferent devices of a broadly similar type. For example, it can be abase or ancestor class for specific drivers which need to have slightlydifferent or extended functionality but which can take advantage of themajority of the functionality provided by the class driver.

The phrase “communication mode” or “communication modality” refers to aparticular way of communicating. For example, E-mail is a firstcommunication mode; instant messaging a second; digital voice a third;Voice over IP a fourth; facsimile a fifth; and tweeting a sixth.

The term “computer-readable medium” as used herein refers to anytangible storage and/or transmission medium that participate inproviding instructions to a processor for execution. Such a medium maytake many forms, including but not limited to, non-volatile media,volatile media, and transmission media. Non-volatile media includes, forexample, NVRAM, or magnetic or optical disks. Volatile media includesdynamic memory, such as main memory. Common forms of computer-readablemedia include, for example, a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk,magnetic tape, or any other magnetic medium, magneto-optical medium, aCD-ROM, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any otherphysical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM, aFLASH-EPROM, a solid state medium like a memory card, any other memorychip or cartridge, a carrier wave as described hereinafter, or any othermedium from which a computer can read. A digital file attachment toe-mail or other self-contained information archive or set of archives isconsidered a distribution medium equivalent to a tangible storagemedium. When the computer-readable media is configured as a database, itis to be understood that the database may be any type of database, suchas relational, hierarchical, object-oriented, and/or the like.Accordingly, the invention is considered to include a tangible storagemedium or distribution medium and prior art-recognized equivalents andsuccessor media, in which the software implementations of the presentinvention are stored.

The term “computer security” refers to ensuring the availability andcorrect operation of a computer system without concern for theinformation stored or processed by the computer.

The term “communication” refers to any voice, text, and/or videoelectronic communication, such as a voice call, E-mail, instant message,text chat, VoIP call, and the like.

The terms “determine”, “calculate” and “compute,” and variationsthereof, as used herein, are used interchangeably and include any typeof methodology, process, mathematical operation or technique.

The term “driver” refers to logic (typically implemented as software)allowing a higher-level computer program to interact with a hardwaredevice. A driver typically communicates with the device through acomputer bus or communications subsystem to which the hardware connects.When a calling program invokes a routine in the driver, the driverissues commands to the device. Once the device sends data back to thedriver, the driver may invoke routines in the original calling program.

The term “electronic address” refers to any contactable address,including a telephone number, instant message handle, e-mail address,Universal Resource Locator (“URL”), Universal Resource Identifier(“URI”), Address of Record (“AOR”), electronic alias in a database, likeaddresses, and combinations thereof.

The term “engine” refers to a program that performs a core or essentialfunction for other programs. It is also used to describe aspecial-purpose program containing an algorithm that can sometimes bechanged. For example, an engine can be a central or focal program in anoperating system, subsystem, or application program that coordinates theoverall operation of other programs. The best known usage is the term“search engine,” which uses an algorithm to search an index of topicsgiven a search argument. A search engine is designed so that itsapproach to searching the index can be changed to reflect new rules forfinding and prioritizing matches in the index. In artificialintelligence, the program that uses rules of logic to derive output froma knowledge base is called an “inference engine.”

The phrase “enterprise network” refers to a, typically geographicallydispersed, computer network under the jurisdiction or control of oneorganization. It often includes several different types of networks andcomputer systems from different vendors.

The term “hyperlink” refers to a reference to a document that the readercan directly follow, or that is followed automatically. The referencepoints to a whole document or to a specific element within a document.Hypertext is text with hyperlinks. Such text is usually viewed with acomputer. A hyperlink has an anchor, which is a location within adocument from which the hyperlink can be followed; that document isknown as its source document. The target of a hyperlink is the document,or location within a document, that the hyperlink leads to. The user canfollow the link when its anchor is shown by activating it. Following hasthe effect of displaying its target, often with its context. In somehypertext, hyperlinks can be bidirectional; that is, they can befollowed in two directions, so both points act as anchors and astargets. More complex arrangements exist, such as many-to-many links.

The term “information security” means protecting information andinformation systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure,disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording or destruction.

The terms “instant message” and “instant messaging” refer to a form ofreal-time text communication between two or more people, typically basedon typed text. The instant message is conveyed by an instant messagingprogram offered by a service, such as AOL™, MSN Messenger™, Yahoo!Messenger™, Live Messenger™, and Apple's iChat™. Generally included inthe instant messaging software is the ability to see the presence ofanother party; that is, the ability to see whether a chosen friend,co-worker or other selected person (known as a “buddy”), is online andconnected through the selected service. Instant messaging differs fromordinary e-mail in the immediacy of the message exchange and also makesa continued exchange simpler than sending e-mail back and forth. Instantmessaging, unlike e-mail, is also generally stateless. Most exchangesare text-only, though some services now allow voice messaging, filesharing and even video chat (when both users have cameras). For instantmessaging to work, both users must be online at the same time and theintended recipient must be willing to accept instant messages. Anattempt to send an instant message to someone who is not online (or isoffline), or who is not willing to accept instant messages, will resultin a notification that the transmission cannot be completed. If theonline software is set to accept instant messages, it alerts therecipient with a distinctive sound and provides a window thatcollectively indicates that an instant message has arrived. The windowallows the recipient to accept or reject the incoming instant message.An instant message session is deemed to disconnect, or be disconnected,when the user goes offline, refuses to accept an instant message, or issuspended by the user failing to respond to an instant message after apredetermined period of time after an instant message is sent and/orreceived. An instant message session is deemed to be reconnected (or acall-back deemed to occur) when the user resumes the instant messagingsession, such as by responding to an outstanding instant message.

The term “link” refers to a reference from one location to anotherlocation. The location can, for example, be an electronic address, adata storage address, a Universal Resource Locator, a Universal ResourceIndicator, and the like. Common examples of links include hyperlinks.

The term “metaphor telephone” refers to a reference to a communicationdevice that displays a metaphorical depiction of a selected object, suchas a device capability, a communication medium, a virtual or geographiclocation, and the like. An example is where a telecommunication devicerichly displays a conference by each participating node's communicationcapabilities and limitations.

The term “module” as used herein refers to any known or later developedhardware, software, firmware, artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, orcombination of hardware and software that is capable of performing thefunctionality associated with that element. Also, while the invention isdescribed in terms of exemplary embodiments, it should be appreciatedthat individual aspects of the invention can be separately claimed.

The term “presence information” refers to any information associatedwith a network node and/or endpoint device, such as a communicationdevice, that is in turn associated with a person or identity. Presenceinformation can indicate user status (e.g., online or offline), useravailability (e.g., available, busy, on the phone, or out to lunch),user's desired contact means (e.g., instant messaging, circuit-switchedtelephone, packet-switched telephone, cell phone, pager, etc.) that mayvary by contactor identity and/or contact time, and at what endpoint acontactor is most likely to reach successfully the presence servicesubscriber. Presence information can span a number of differentcommunication channels. The aggregated view of a user's presence (thatis, the availability across all of an individual's SIP-enabled devices)is called Multiple Points of Presence or MPOP. Examples of informationuseful in determining a user's presence and availability includeinformation regarding the accessibility of the endpoint device, therecency of use of the endpoint device by the person, recency ofauthentication by the person to a network component, recency ofregistration of an endpoint device, an endpoint publishing presenceinformation, SUBSCRIPTION requests generated by a user agent in theuser's endpoint device, geographical location of the user using mobiledevice location information, scheduled activities on the user'scalendar, indications whether or not a user has been reading or sendingemail, and an indication whether the user's email application has an outof office setting. Present information can be, for example, theelectronic address of a device at which the service subscriber iscurrently deemed to be present and/or available.

The terms “online community”, “e-community”, or “virtual community” meana group of people that primarily interact via a computer network, ratherthan face to face, for social, professional, educational or otherpurposes. The interaction can use a variety of media formats, includingwikis, blogs, chat rooms, Internet forums, instant messaging, email, andother forms of electronic media. Many media formats are used in socialsoftware separately or in combination, including text-based chat roomsand forums that use voice, video text or avatars.

The term “security” refers to both information and computer security.

The term “Service Oriented Architecture” or “SOA” refers to a collectionof services. These services communicate with each other. Thecommunication can involve either simple data passing and/or two or moreservices coordinating some activity.

The term “social network service” is a service provider that buildsonline communities of people, who share interests and/or activities, orwho are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.Most social network services are web-based and provide a variety of waysfor users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.

The term “social network” refers to a web-based social network.

The term “subscriber” denotes an individual who normally is in a trustrelationship with an enterprise allowing them to have access to, andinteract within, the enterprise network and/or who normally receivessome level of access to sensitive enterprise information, serviced viaone or more communication media/modes provided and/or used by theenterprise, and requiring a trust relationship with the enterprise.Normally, a subscriber refers to a person having one or morecommunication devices controlled by an enterprise network. “Control”includes, without limitation, one or more of the actions of service by,registration with, and subscription with the enterprise network.Normally, a subscriber has a communication device located within alogical and/or physical trust boundary of the enterprise network. Thetrust boundary can be defined by one or more of a firewall, gateway,local area network definition and/or configuration, virtual privatenetwork definition and/or configuration, demilitarized zone, perimeternetwork definition and/or configuration, and the like.

The term “synchronized” means, in the context of databases, maintainingselected fields in the records of one database temporally up to datewith respect to changes in the information stored, by the otherdatabase, in the selected or equivalent fields.

The term “token” or “tag” refers to a container of information that canbe transmitted between computational nodes and/or can be associated witha set of information, such as a document, communication, file, link,application, sharepoint, blog, micro-blog, Really Simple Syndicated(“RSS”) feed, and the like. Tags are typically a type of meta-data thatis descriptive of selected information. Tags are normally in the form ofan extensible markup language (“XML”) or some other markup language.

The term “VoIP” refers to a family of transmission technologies fordelivering packetized voice communications over IP networks such as theInternet or other packet-switched networks, rather than the publicswitched telephone network (PSTN). Other terms frequently encounteredand synonymous with VoIP are IP telephony, Internet telephony, voiceover broadband (VoBB), broadband telephony, and broadband phone. Commonprotocols for VoIP include H.323 and the Session Initiation Protocol.

The preceding is a simplified summary of the disclosure to provide anunderstanding of some aspects of the disclosure. This summary is neitheran extensive nor exhaustive overview of the disclosure and its variousaspects, embodiments, and/or configurations. It is intended neither toidentify key or critical elements of the disclosure nor to delineate thescope of the disclosure but to present selected concepts of thedisclosure in a simplified form as an introduction to the more detaileddescription presented below. As will be appreciated, other aspects,embodiments, and/or configurations of the disclosure are possibleutilizing, alone or in combination, one or more of the features setforth above or described in detail below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a network architecture according to anembodiment;

FIG. 2 depicts a policy agent according to an embodiment;

FIG. 3 depicts a tag according to an embodiment;

FIG. 3 depicts a flow chart according to an embodiment;

FIG. 4 depicts a flow chart according to an embodiment;

FIG. 5 depicts a flow chart according to an embodiment;

FIG. 6 depicts a flow chart according to an embodiment; and

FIG. 7 depicts a flow chart according to an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Overview of System Architecture

The disclosure, in various aspects, embodiments, and configurations,provides a system and method to perform a variety of operationsdiscussed in more detail below. The various aspects, embodiments, andconfigurations relate to automated policy and/or rule creation, policymonitoring, tracking, and enforcement, and remediation of policyviolations. In one aspect, a comprehensive communications securitysystem orchestrates and coordinates a myriad of presently incompatiblesecurity methods and systems within a complex multi-media, multi-modaland/or multi-venue communications environment to secure a selectedcommunication and/or content. More specifically a combination ofspecialized, highly intelligent, communications processors (such as theAvaya Aura Communications Manager™ and/or Avaya Aura Session Manager™),enterprise email applications (such as Microsoft Outlook™ or the like),other application specific messaging applications (such as Avaya ModularMessaging™) are tied together via an application and/or hardware tointelligently enforce overall communications security. Extensible markup (“XML”) languages in many forms are nearly a defacto standard forrationalizing dissimilar communications entities and protocols. Whenused in combination with the policy enforcement server, XML and its manyvariations can allow mixed vendor architectures, such as Avaya Aura™, tooffer an overall security structure for all communications.

In one implementation, a policy enforcement server monitors, tracks, andreports system-wide communications, structures parties as being insideor outside of an enterprise network, allows multiple levels of othergroupings, such as organizations, project teams, structural levels,security permissions, parties with a need to know certain information,and the like, receives input from external sources, such as on-linecommunities, social networks, presence services, and the like, toprovide additional structural detail and other ad-hoc grouping orcollaboration information, determines and analyzes communicationsecurity requirements regardless of the form of the selectedcommunication, determines whether existing security measures or fileprotection protocols are adequate for the selected communication and/orcontent, determines an optimum network to effect transfer based onfactors, including the security requirements for the selectedcommunication and/or content, determines whether intended recipients areeach permitted to receive the selected communication and/or contentindependent of whether the recipient is an individual or group member,compares the date, time and content of the selected communicationagainst certain temporal factors that may act as gates for recipientaccess of the communication and/or content, considers the intended venueof the selected communication in permitting or blocking publication onthe venue, intelligently creates policies and rules by observing systemand user behavior, permits or enables sending of sensitive informationto a party outside of a normal sphere of trust or enterprise networkperimeter without extending firewall permissions or a persistentsecurity application to the recipient, offers broadcast alerts to themembers of a defined group in response to detected policy violations,links to other servers, application specific processors, messagingsystems, storage and other such systems to coordinate security,intercepts and deletes or marks part of or all of a communication and/orcontent based on the policies, and/or flags areas of redundant andprocessor intensive encryption or security transcoding.

In security applications, a selected communication and/or content cantake many forms, including, without limitation, a software application,electronic spreadsheet, electronic file, record, or document (e.g., wordprocessing document, prior meeting notes, and the like), image, web linkor page, sharepoint, blog, micro-blog, Really Simple Syndication (“RSS”)feed, single- and/or multi-media communication (e.g., voice mails,e-mails, instant messages, and the like), communication histories, andother electronic forms of information.

A plurality of policy agents distributed throughout a plurality ofenterprise network nodes, such as communication devices, firewalls, andgateways, application servers, track, define, and monitor user and/orsystem behavior. Such policy agents inspect and tag, for instance,communications and other content and provide the policy tags, optionallywith the respective communication and/or content, to the policyenforcement server.

In one configuration, a policy agent features a compose mode, oralternatively a buffer, so that security feedback, such as policyviolation warnings, encryption, change of format (security transcoding),and/or permissions, are provided. The policy agent can perform policyenforcement, such as buffering communications prior to transmission orconnection while the policy enforcement server determines appropriatepolicy measure(s). Such capabilities have not previously been possiblewith real-time communications because of the normal dial plan. Somespecialized secure phones and secure lines may have offered securitycapabilities, but this was not widely available to all members of agroup particularly using generic and generally available hardware. Withthe introduction of devices with graphical dial metaphors, the abilityto provide feedback or input prior to triggering the call or othercommunication session is now possible. Since such new graphical phoneshave more processing power than Plain Old Telephones (“POTs”) phones,they are capable of being highly integrated with centralized telephonyprocessors for features, coordination and collaboration. In contrast toconventional phones requiring specialized secure phones and lines,graphical dial metaphor phones are readily available to all members of agroup or enterprise. In one configuration, policy agents are implementedin a driver, commonly in a class driver, to allow for this level ofcontrol. Class driver behavior can change based on communication withthe policy enforcement server. This would allow context, content, andextended global address list to be involved in the filtering mechanism.For instance, the user interface could, in the event of a possiblepolicy or rule violation, drop the message or warn the user.

The various aspects, embodiments, and configurations in this disclosurewill be illustrated below in conjunction with an exemplary communicationsystem. Although well suited for use with, e.g., a system using aserver(s) and/or database(s), the present disclosure is not limited touse with any particular type of communication system or configuration ofsystem elements. Those skilled in the art will recognize that thedisclosed techniques may be used in any application in which it isdesirable to collect and associate related and temporally changingmultimedia information for presentation to a user.

FIG. 1 depicts a system 100 according to an embodiment. Referring toFIG. 1, an enterprise network 104 is in communication, via externalnetwork 108, with a presence service 112, one or more externalcommunication device(s) 116, a social network 124, web search engine(s)130, other enterprise networks 134, and other web-accessible resources132.

External network 108 can be any type of external network, including,without limitation, circuit or packet-switched, public and untrusted,private or VPN-based, etc. The external network 108 is preferably apublic packet-switched and/or circuit-switched network or set ofnetworks. In one configuration, the external network 108 is a publicnetwork supporting the TCP/IP suite of protocols.

The presence service 112 includes a presence server 160 and anassociated presence information database 164 that may or may not beoperated by (or be external to) the enterprise network 104. The presenceserver 160 and presence information database 164 collectively track thepresence and/or availability of presence service subscribers and/ortheir communication devices and provide, to requesting entities, currentpresence information respecting selected presence service subscribers.Presence may include physical location tracking of a person and/or theperson's associated computational or communication device, such as by asatellite location system. Examples of satellite location systemsinclude Global Positioning System (“GPS”), Compass Navigation System,and Galileo Positioning System. As will be appreciated, when thepresence service 112 is external to the enterprise the presence servicesubscribers are different from the enterprise subscribers.

The external communication device(s) 116 can be any suitable circuit- orpacket-switched or digital (e.g., TDM-enabled) communication device.Examples include wired and wireless telephones, cellular phones,Personal Digital Assistants or PDAs, Personal Computers or PCs, laptops,packet-based H.320 video phones and conferencing units, packet-basedvoice messaging and response units, peer-to-peer based communicationdevices, graphical dial metaphor telephones, and packet-basedtraditional computer telephony adjuncts.

The social network 124 can be any social internetworking service,including those defined above.

The web search engines 130 search for information on the externalnetwork 108, including information provided by web accessible resources132. The information may consist of web pages, images, information andother types of files. Some search engines also mine data available indatabases or open directories. Unlike web directories, which aremaintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically orare a mixture of algorithmic and human input. Web search engines 130typically operate through the sequential operations of web crawling,indexing, and searching. Exemplary search engines include Yahoo!™,Google™, Internet Explorer™, Bing™, Baidu™, AOL™, and Netscape™ searchengines.

The web-accessible resources 132 refer to any indexed or otherwisesearchable information or services available on the external network108. Web-accessible resources 132 include information available on webpages, blogs, RSS feeds, and the like.

The other enterprise networks 134 can be proprietary networks of otherenterprises and/or other geographically dislocated sub-networks of thesame enterprise associated with the enterprise network 104.

The enterprise network 104 includes a policy enforcement server 136, atelecommunication switch or server 140, a gateway (which optionallyincludes firewall functionality) 144, an internet search module 148, anenterprise record search engine 152, messaging server(s) 156 (such as a(unified) messaging server, instant messaging server, email server, andthe like), an enterprise database 160, a personal information manager164, a plurality of first, second, . . . pth personal computers 168 a-p,and a plurality of internal first, second, . . . nth communicationsdevices 172 a-n, interconnected by an (trusted or secure or private)internal network 178.

The policy enforcement server 136 monitors the behavior of theenterprise network 104 and enforces enterprise policies and rules. Forexample, policies and/or rules can define security rules, contentsecurity indications, compliance coordination, access permissions, andthe like.

The telecommunications switch and/or server 140 can include a PBX, anenterprise switch, an enterprise server, or other type oftelecommunications system switch or server. The communication server 140is preferably configured to execute telecommunication applications suchas the suite of MultiVantage™ or Aura™ applications of Avaya, Inc.,including Communication Manager™, Aura Communication Manager™, Avaya IPOffice™, and MultiVantage Express™. Included in the memory of thetelecommunication switch and/or server 140 are call logs (not shown).

The (unified) messaging server 156 may provide features for integratingreal-time voice, video and text communication services, such as instantmessaging, chat, telephony (including IP telephony), and videoconferencing, with non real-time communication services, such as voicemail, e-mail, SMS, and fax.

The personal information manager 164 contains, organizes and/orsynchronizes subscriber personal information, such as contactinformation or address books, electronic calendars, personal notes,lists (e.g., task lists), reminders, text message archives, RSS/Atomfeeds, alerts, and project management. An exemplary personal informationmanager 164 is Outlook™ by Microsoft, Inc. An electronic calendar, aswill be appreciated, includes scheduled events indexed by date and time.

The first, second, . . . pth computers 168 a-p can be any computationaldevice, with personal computers and laptops being illustrative.

The first, second, . . . nth communication devices 172 a-n can besimilar to the external communication devices 116. In some embodiments,the communication devices 172 a-n may be IP-enabled, SIP-enabled,digital, and/or analog devices. Examples of suitable modified IPtelephones include the 1600™, 2400™, 4600™, 5400™, 5600™, 9600™, 9620™,9630™, 9640™, 9640G™, 9650™, and Quick Edition™ telephones, IP wirelesstelephones (such as Avaya Inc.'s IP DECT™ phones), video phones (such asAvaya Inc.'s Videophone™), metaphor phones, and softphones of Avaya,Inc. Other types of suitable communication devices 172 a-n include,without limitation, cellular phones, analog phones, digital phones, etc.

In the ensuing discussion, “enterprise communication node” refers to anynode on the enterprise network 104, including without limitation thetelecommunication switch and/or server 140, the gateway 144, theinternet search module 148, the enterprise record search engine 152, themessaging server(s) 156, each of the first . . . pth computers 168 a-pand/or first . . . nth communication devices 172 a-n.

The enterprise database 160 includes enterprise subscriber information,such as name, job title, electronic address information (e.g., telephonenumber, email address, instant messaging handle, direct dial extension,and the like), subscriber contact lists (e.g., contact name andelectronic address information), other employee records, search results,and the like. In one configuration, the enterprise database 160 isconfigured in accordance with the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.

The internet search module 148 interfaces with a web search engine 130to search social network(s) 124 and other web accessible resources 132for instances of factors and events relating to policies and/or rules.

The enterprise record search engine 152 indexes and searches enterpriserecords and other information sources for instances of factors andevents relating to policies and/or rules. Examples of enterprise-leveland locally stored information sources include messaging server(s) 156,call logs, first . . . pth computers 168-p, first . . . nthcommunication devices 172 a-n, enterprise database 160, and personalinformation manager 164. The enterprise record search engine 152 can beconfigured in a manner similar to a Web search engine. In other words,the enterprise record search engine 152 can store indexed informationabout multiple records by a Web crawler or spider-type module (forexample, words are extracted from the titles, headings, or meta tagsassociated with the record). The searches are made against the index.

The Internet search module 148 and enterprise record search engine 152,for example, can search for and identify discrete communications thatare part of a common thread involving one or more common communicantsand/or communication devices and spanning multiple media and modalities,identify communications and/or other content related to a definedsubject matter or topic and/or involving one or more selectedindividuals and/or communication devices, and identify other informationrelevant to one or more selected factor(s) and event(s).

The Policy Enforcement Server

Included in the memory of the policy enforcement server 136 is asecurity policy engine 176, a control module 172, an administrativemodule 180, and an analysis module 184.

The security policy engine 176 receives polices and/or rules fromadministrators, creates, defines, or generates policies and/or rules byintelligently (such as by a neural network) monitoring user, enterprise,and enterprise network behavior, and configures sets of expressionscorresponding to the policies and/or rules. The set of expressionscorresponding to a selected policy and/or rule defines the applicablefactor(s) and/or event(s) to which the policy or rule applies andenumerates the corresponding action(s) to be taken upon detection of aninstance of the factor(s) and/or event(s). The corresponding actionsrelate to one or more of policy or rule compliance and remediation of apolicy or rule violation. Exemplary policies regard security to protectthe confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and/or availability ofenterprise information, statutory and/or regulatory compliance (e.g.,export or import restrictions), agreement compliance (e.g., compliancewith the terms and conditions of the agreement), content securityindications, compliance coordination, access permissions, and public orsemi-public announcements.

A common type of enterprise policy and/or rule relates to security.Security policies and/or rules for defined information could beexpressed in terms of authentication, access control lists (e.g., whitelists, black lists, gray lists, etc.) , the principle of leastprivilege, security classifications of persons and/or information (e.g.,public, sensitive, private, confidential, unclassified, sensitive butunclassified, restricted, confidential, secret, and top secret), andcryptography requirements (e.g., message digests, digital signatures,non-repudiation, and encryption). Exemplary policies or rules includelimits on presentation of the selected communication and/or contentbased on a virtual or spatial location of the user, user role, level orpersona, and/or the particular communication node currently in use bythe user. For instance, if the user is attempting to view businesssensitive information in a public location, a use restriction wouldprevent or bar access to the information while the user is in the publiclocation. In another example, if the user is attempting to view businesssensitive information from his home computer, a use restriction wouldprevent or bar access to the information while the user is defined byhis “at home” persona. In another example, a user permission wouldpermit a plurality of members of a workgroup to access the selectedcommunication and/or content.

The factors and events considered in applying security policies and/orrules include subscriber persona and/or role, other communicant(s)persona and/or role, degree of trust, subscriber and/or othercommunicant(s) device capabilities, provisioning, and preferences,subscriber device context, existing policy compliance measures, venue,subscriber and/or other communicant(s) context, content description,communication and/or content context, relevant policies and/or rulesdetected, recommendation/decision, and use restrictions and/orpermissions. These factors are described in detail below.

The control module 172 applies the policy and rule expressions todetected instances of factors and events. In security applications forexample, the control module 172 determines security requirements forselected content and/or communications and creates and updates policytags appended to, embedded in, or otherwise associated with the selectedcontent and/or communications. This determination includes for instancedetermining the adequacy of existing security measures, determining thedesirable transport network for the selected communication,rationalizing (e.g., via policy and security transcoding) incompatiblesecurity schemes or measures, and coordinating security measures withother enterprise networks 134. The adequacy of existing securitymeasures can be determined using a simple rules engine, a rules matrixlisting rows and columns of security intercepts, and/or an artificiallyintelligent engine.

The administrative module 180 monitors, tracks, and reports system-widecommunications, and receives from the control module 172, logs instancesof, and sends notices of policy and/or rule violations to definedrecipients. Exemplary recipients include the security policy engine 176(for an artificially intelligent engine 176), subscribers, selectedcommunication sender(s) and/or recipient(s) and content user(s) (whethersubscribers or non-subscribers), and administrative and/or informationtechnology personnel. In one configuration, the administrative module180 tracks not only transmission history of communications but alsotransmission and user access history of attachments to communications,creation, edit, and/or access history of selected content. By way ofillustration, the administrative module 180 and/or analysis module 184would track the action of subscriber A (who has privilege to access aselected sensitive document) sending, by an email attachment, thesensitive document to equally privileged party B, who extracts theattachment from email and forwards it to unprivileged party C. In oneconfiguration, the policy and/or rule violation notices are broadcast onone or more selected media (which can be different from the mediasubject to the violation). In one configuration, the administrativemodule 180 channels reports of suspected abuses and compliance issues tosecurity personnel. In one configuration, the administrative module 180logs an identifier or attribute of the selected communication and/orcontent, a respective timestamp associated with the inspection,analysis, and/or policy- or rule-based decision relating to the selectedcommunication, and/or content, a rationale behind the policy- orrule-based decision or response to the selected communication and/orcontent, the nature of the policy- or rule-based decision or response tothe selected communication and/or content, selected contents of thepolicy tag 300 and/or a pointer, link, or other reference to therelevant policy tag 300 and/or the selected communication and/orcontent. This information can through pattern-analysis and other knowntechniques identify subscribers repetitively violating a policy or ruleso that corrective, punitive, or disciplinary action may be taken.

The analysis module 184 analyzes selected communications and content toidentify predetermined factor and event instances, optionally identifypotential policy and/or rule violations, optionally determinerecommended policy or rule measures, and create and update policy tagsappended to, embedded in, or otherwise associated with the selectedcontent and/or communications. The analysis module 184 forwards thecreated or updated policy tag, and optionally the selected communicationand/or content, to the control module 172 for application of policiesand/or rules.

The Policy Agent

Included in the memories of various communication nodes are policyagents 190. Policy agents 190 monitor the activities performed by thecorresponding communication node to identify instances of factors andevents. For communication nodes, such as the gateway 144 and messagingservers 156, the policy agent 190 monitors the processing or handling ofincoming and outgoing signals, particularly text and voice messages andvoice signals. For communication nodes, such as first . . . pthcomputers 168 a-p and first . . . nth communication devices 172 a-n, thepolicy agent 190 monitors the operations of the interface between theuser and the corresponding device and provides a compose mode for theselected communication and/or content. In the compose mode, the policyagent 190 monitors the subscriber composition (e.g., creation oredition) of a selected communication and/or content to monitor forpolicy and/or rule violations.

The monitored activities can be any selected activity related to apolicy or rule, such as a communication with one or more other partiesand preparation of a document. For example, the policy agent 190 caninspect email sent, instant messages sent, live voice communicationssent, voice messages sent, documents reviewed, created, and/or edited,Web browsing sessions, and any other form of communication where contentof the communication can be electronically discerned. The inspection canbe performed using selected keywords or collections of keywords, each ofwhich is associated with a predetermined area, topic, or subject matter,a selected symbol or set of symbols, value or set of values, character,and/or set of characters to identify a selected grammar, syntax,language, protocol, setting, feature, and/or application and/orsubcomponent or function thereof, a selected set of parsing rules orlogic to identify the context, content, and/or communication modality ofa signal. In one configuration, the keywords may be selected by a userand/or enterprise.

With reference to FIG. 2, a policy agent 190 includes a search,analysis, and/or tagging module 200 to search and analyze selectedcommunications and content, track, at the device level, communicationsand selected content (including tracking communication threads anddocument versions), and generate policy tags containing the results,alert module 204 to generate and transmit notices, to the policyenforcement server 136 and other predetermined recipients, of policyand/or rule violations identified by the search, analysis, and/ortagging module 200 and/or the policy enforcement module 208, policyenforcement module 208 to receive and forward to the policy enforcementserver 136 tagged communications and/or content, identify and notify thealert module 204 and/or policy enforcement server 176 of potentialpolicy or rule violations, and receive and implement commands from thepolicy enforcement server 136, and messaging interface 212.

In response to identifying or receiving notification from the policyenforcement server 136 of occurrences or instances of predeterminedfactors and/or events, the policy agent 190 creates or updates policytags and forwards the policy tags, alone or as part of the correspondingcommunication and/or content, to the analysis module 184 of the policyenforcement server 136. The predetermined factors and/or events includeone or more of identification of applicable policy or rule, instance ofpolicy or rule violation, existing policy compliance measure(s), contentdescription, subscriber persona or role, other communicant(s) (whethersender(s) or recipient(s)) personal or role, degree of trust, subscriberand/or other communicant(s) communication device capabilities,provisioning, and preferences, venue for the selected communicationand/or content, and communication and/or content context.

When intervention is required, the control module 172 forwards anintervention command to the policy enforcement module 208. Interventioncommands include one or more of buffer the selected communication beforetransmission or connection, block access of the selected communicationand/or content by negotiating different security measures with aninternal or external device, redirect the selected communication to adifferent destination (such as administrative or information technologypersonnel), redirect the selected communication over a differentcommunication modality, block transmission or access of the selectedcommunication and/or content by all or a subset of potential recipientsor users, reconfigure, redefine, and/or transcode security measures forthe selected communication and/or content, provide a warning of a policyor rule violation, require encryption, require change of format(security transcoding), require, define or restrict permissions, andprovide a visual or audible warning to the user of a potential policy orrule violation. As will be appreciated, transcoding refers to changingor converting format, encryption, or other security measures to satisfythe least common denominator of the various node capabilities along thetransmission path or channel, including the communication endpoints.

In one configuration, the policy agent 190 analyzes the identifiedoccurrences of factors and/or events and assigns, updates, and/orgenerates a level of confidence that the associated message or contentis relevant to a policy or rule. The assigned level of confidenceapplied to the keyword occurrences can be based on a number of factors,including number or frequency of identified instances of the selectedfactor or event and the identities of the identified factors or events.

The policy agent 190 can be implemented in a variety of ways. Forexample, the policy agent 190 can be implemented as a thick-clientsoftware application, thin-client browser-based application, or otherWeb service-oriented application including voice-portal drivenapplications. It could be an embedded ability in an IP Hardphone or apushed application to this type of communication device, such as in theform of a servlet or applet. It is envisioned that each of thesubscriber-accessible application access methods will interact with Webserver-based application(s) of the archival server components. The Webserver-based applications are assumed to be accessible via standard HTTPprotocols from any number of remote applications, with Common GatewayInterface (CGI) scripts necessary to read/write meta-data and archivefiles into the various repositories (or databases).

In one configuration, the policy agent 190 is located in thecommunication stack at the class driver level such that each instance ofaccess to the internal or external network 178 or 108 necessarily passesthrough the policy agent 190. Since the class driver occurs before theinformation is packetized and since the policy agent 190 is on thesystem where the communication is being originated, there should beenough information to make the determination of whether or not thecommunication can occur based on context and content.

The policy enforcement server 136 locates and analyzes information atthe enterprise network level while the policy agent 190 locates andanalyzes information available locally. By way of example, the policyenforcement server 136, unlike the policy agent 190, proactively locatespolicy-related information not only in enterprise records but alsoavailable on the external network 108. While the search, analysis,and/or tagging module 200 accesses communications and content storedlocally, the policy enforcement server 136 accesses policy tags 300,communications, and content available at multiple enterprisecommunication nodes. While the search, analysis, and/or tagging module200 correlates factors, events, and information available locally, thepolicy enforcement server 136 correlates factors, events, andinformation available from multiple policy agents 190 in multipleenterprise communication nodes.

The Policy Tag

With reference to FIG. 3, a policy tag 300 is a portable container ofpolicy-related information that is relevant to policy or rulecompliance.

An illustrative policy tag 300 includes a number of sets of information,including tag identifier 304, content identifier 308, stimulus/stimuli312, authentication information 320, subscriber persona and/or role 324,other communicant(s) persona and/or role 328, degree of trust 332,subscriber and/or other communicant(s) device capabilities,provisioning, and preferences 336, subscriber device context 342,existing policy compliance measures 346, venue 340, subscriber and/orother communicant(s) context 344, content description 348, communicationand/or content context 352, relevant policies and/or rules detected 356,recommendation/decision 360, and use restrictions and/or permissions364.

The tag identifier 304 can be any numeric, alphabetical, or alphanumericidentifier that identifies, uniquely, the respective policy tag 300.Examples of policy tag identifiers 304 include keyword, name,communication, message, or session identifier, file or directory name orextension, employee identifier, project name, electronic address, andthe like. In one configuration, the policy tag identifier 304 isgenerated by a random or pseudorandom number generator.

The content identifier 308 can be any numeric, alphabetical, oralphanumeric identifier that identifies uniquely the correspondingcommunication, document, or other content. Examples of contentidentifiers 308 include a pointer, link, or other electronic memoryaddress. In one configuration, the content identifier 308 is generatedby a random or pseudorandom number generator. The content identifier 308may or may not be the same identifier used for the policy tag identifier304.

The stimulus/stimuli 312 refers to the stimulus or stimuli (includingassociated timestamp) causing policy tag 300 generation. Examplesinclude incoming or outgoing message receipt, document creation, blog ormicro-blog posting, receipt of RSS feed, file or record retrieval, webbrowsing session, and the like.

Authentication information 320 refers to the information that enablesthe policy enforcement server 136 to access a correspondingcommunication and/or content. Examples of authentication information 320include credentials, such as usernames, log-in names, pins, andpasswords, biometrics, digital certificates, security tokens, dongles,keys, social security numbers, driver license numbers, membershipnumbers, employee numbers, passport numbers, customer numbers, and otherauthentication and/or authorization attributes. The authenticationinformation 320 is typically associated with the subscribercorresponding to respective communication and/or content. For example,the authentication information 320 can be a password to access apassword-protected document or a log-in name and password to(re)initiate a session with an Internet site.

Subscriber persona(s) 324 refer to the various contextual profiles ofthe subscriber creator, originator, editor, recipient, and/or sender ofthe corresponding communication and/or content. Characterizing personaor role is complicated by the fact that the user may be making use of aplurality of fixed and mobile devices to conduct such activities.Although the subscriber normally refers to the enterprise subscriberassociated with the enterprise communication node corresponding to thereporting policy agent 190, this field can include the person(s) orrole(s) of other subscribers creating, originating, receiving, editing,or sending the corresponding communication and/or content. For example,a subscriber may conduct company business from home or alternativelyneed to conduct urgent personal business from work. The subscriber wouldthus have a “business profile” defined by business related information,such as employer name, user level, user organization, the subscriber'sbusiness-related electronic addresses (e.g., cellular phone number, deskphone number, e-mail address, instant message handle, and the like),satellite-based physical location coordinates associated with businesslocation (current location can be determined, inter alia, by cellularphone location techniques), Web browsed URL's corresponding withbusiness interests, times-of-day or days-of-week associated withbusiness time, contact lists of business associates, clients, suppliers,customers, and/or other business-related contacts, and the like. Thesubscriber can also have a “personal (non-business) profile” defined bypersonal information, such as family member names, the subscriber'spersonal electronic addresses (e.g., cellular phone number, desk phonenumber, e-mail address, instant message handle, and the like),satellite-based physical location coordinates associated with personal(e.g., home or other residence) location, Web browsed URL'scorresponding with personal interests, times-of-day or days-of-weekassociated with personal time, contact lists of friends, family members,hobby suppliers, charitable organizations and other volunteeractivities, and/or other personal contacts, and the like. The personasand/or roles and their respective descriptions can be obtained from theenterprise network (such as from the enterprise record search engine152), the Internet search module 148 by access of a profile of thecommunicant(s) available on a social network 124 or other web accessibleresource 132, and/or the presence service 112 associated with thesubscriber. For example, the policy enforcement server 136 candetermine, via rich presence and persona detection, at least part of thetime when enterprise or group business is being conducted. This can beaccomplished when the telecommunication switch/server 140 is connectedto the endpoint. When the endpoint is not part of the enterprise network104 and uses a different presence service 112, the traffic would be sentthrough the enterprise network 104 so that the telecommunicationswitch/server 140 had access to the traffic to enforce the policies andrules.

The other communicant(s) persona and/or role 328 refer to the persona orrole of other nonsubscriber creator, originator, editor(s),recipient(s), and/or sender(s) of the corresponding communication and/orcontent. The persona or role can be defined in any suitable manner,including the manner set forth above in connection with the subscriberpersona(s) 324. This information may be obtained from the enterprisenetwork 104 associated with the other communicant(s), the personalinformation manager 164 of the subscriber (which has a contact profileof the other communicant), the Internet search module 148 by access of aprofile of the communicant(s) available on a social network 124 or otherweb accessible resource 132, or the presence service 112 associated withthe other communicant(s).

The degree of trust 332 refers to the apparent degree of trust, and/ornature of trusted relationship (e.g., role of the person in theenterprise business operations), of the subscriber with each person orcomputational entity intended to have access to the selectedcommunication and/or content. Such persons include the intendedrecipients, sender, originator, reviewer, editor, and the like. Thedegree of trust can be rated, quantified, or otherwise defined by theenterprise, such that each member of a trusted group has a respective,potentially different, degree of trust defined by the enterprise. Eachtrusted group can also have a respective degree of trust rating by theenterprise such that it can receive certain type of sensitiveinformation but not other types.

A person can be a member of multiple groups. The group members can beidentified by a universal identifier, such as a name, email address,instant message handle, and the like, which is portable among multipledevices and/or by an address of a specific communication device.

This field permits entities inside and/or outside the enterprise tostructure parties as being either inside or outside the enterprise. Thisfield can also enable multiple levels of other groupings, such asbusiness organization (e.g., department and business entity), a projectteam, a board, a panel, a task group, a business team, business group,structural levels, security permissions, parties with a need to knowcertain information, and the like. The analysis module 184 can formtrusted groups based on authoritative or trusted input from policyagents 190 within firewalls and gateways, virtual private networkdefinitions or configurations, a local area network definition and/orconfiguration, demilitarized zone definition and/or configuration,perimeter network definition and/or configuration, an enterprisedatabase 160 record, such as an electronic directory for phone numbers,an electronic directory for email, an electronic enterprise directory,and/or authoritative and/or trusted input from a back officeapplication, such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (“LDAP”),Post, System Application and Products (“SAP”), a human resource record,such as an enterprise personnel record, a payroll system, securitycredentials from an internal or enterprise network source, an identityserver, a white list and/or black list at the gateway 144, an accesscontrol list, an administrative setting, and any other such informationthat can be used to federate a complete picture of internal versusexternal identity. The grouping definitions can also or alternatively bebased on input from social networks 124 (such as Linked In, Facebook,Twitter, and the like) that provide additional project structural detailand other ad-hoc grouping or collaboration information. With socialmedia, one must determine whether the social network 124 is a trustedsource, such as a corporate social network, or whether the socialnetwork 124 is a public social network where a determination of thereliability of the content must be made. Only information deemed to beauthoritative is normally used. Any of the groupings listed above canalso be additionally filtered on other fields in the policy tag 300,such as subscriber and/or other communicant(s) context 344, subscriberand/or other communicant(s) persona or role 324 or 328, contentdescription 348, and the like.

Subscriber and other communicant(s) device capabilities, provisioning,and preferences 336 refer to any set of communication node capabilities,provisioned features, and user preferences. Device capabilities,provisioning, and preferences include, for example, screen size, CPUs,random access memory capacity, volatile memory capacity, nonvolatilememory capacity, total memory capacity, compatible and/or hostedcommunication applications, compatible and/or hosted communicationclients, operating system, port configurations, wireless communicationcapabilities, compatible wired and wireless communication and dataprotocols, codecs and other security or encryption capabilities,bandwidth, voice capabilities, video capabilities, text capabilities,Web capabilities, and screen aspect ratio, icon positioning, data entrycapabilities, removable storage, etc.

Subscriber and other communicant(s) device context 342 refers to adescription of the current state, settings, features, and configurationof the device(s) receiving, sending, or otherwise having access to theselected communication and/or content.

Existing policy compliance measures 346 describes the measures currentlyin place, if any, for the selected communication and/or content tocomply with the relevant policies and/or rules. This field includes adescription of security measures currently in effect respecting thecorresponding communication and/or content, such as logical controls(e.g., credentials (such as passwords), data encryption, and othercryptographic measures), and authentication techniques. This factorpermits the policy enforcement server 136, for example, to determinewhether an existing security system or file protection protocol isadequate for the selected communication and/or content.

The subscriber and other communicant(s) device capabilities,provisioning, and preferences 336, subscriber and other communicant(s)device context 342, and existing policy compliance measures 346 can bemerged into fewer fields. Although the fields can contain the devicecapabilities, provisioning, preferences, and context of the devices ofother subscribers and/or communicant(s) receiving, sending, or otherwisehaving access to the selected communication and/or content, it normallyincludes only the device capabilities, provisioning, and preferences ofthe device associated with the reporting policy agent 190. The analysismodule 184 can populate the field with the capabilities, provisioning,and preferences of other subscriber devices or can simply append orembed or otherwise reference multiple policy tags in the selectedcommunication and/or content.

The venue 340 refers to the degree of public exposure of the intendeddestination or recipient(s) of the selected communication and/orcontent. Examples of venue include the intended destination orrecipient(s) of the selected communication and/or content is public, theintended destination or recipient(s) of the selected communicationand/or content is private, blog, micro-blog, RSS feed, chat room, socialnetwork 124 posting, and news aggregator. The venue 340 impacts theappropriateness or desirability of sharing of the selected communicationand/or content.

The subscriber and/or other communicant(s) context 344 is a descriptionof the context of the subscriber and other communicant(s) receiving,sending, or otherwise having access to the selected communication and/orcontent. “Context” can be any indicator, attribute, or descriptor of atype and/or nature of an activity of a user, user level, a circumstanceof the user, a surrounding of the user, and an environment of the user.Context includes, for example, presence of the subscriber, presence ofthe other communicant(s), physical, logical, and/or political (e.g.,country) location of the subscriber, physical, logical, and/or politicalof the other communicant(s), application involved in the review,transmission, and creation and/or edition of the selected communicationand/or content. If not already included in the selected communicationand/or content, the subscriber and/or other communicant(s) context 344can include the identities and/or addresses of the intended messagerecipients, and the identity and/or Universal Resource Locator (“URL”)address (e.g., link or hyperlink) of a web accessible resource toreceive the selected communication and/or content.

The content description 348 describes the selected communication and/orcontent, typically using symbols or characters referenced in one or moreapplicable policies and/or rules. The content description 348 can takemany forms. For example, the content description 348 can include a keyword or phrase or a set of key words or phrases, product code, serialnumber, communication identifier, session identifier, account number,project name or identifier, employee identifier(s), and team name oridentifier. In one configuration, the policy tag is discrete from theselected communication and/or content and this field includes a pointer,indicator, reference, link or other type of electronic address to theselected communication and/or content. The content description 348 canalso include, or track, the different versions of the selectedcommunication and/or content using one or more policy tags 300. As willbe appreciated, different versions of a document can have differentlevels of sensitivity, which would make it advantageous for each versionto have a different tag as different policy or rule measures may berequired.

The communication context 352 refers to or defines the context of theselected communication and/or content. The communication context 352includes, without limitation, a communication mode or modality selectedfor transmission of the communication, timestamp associated withreceipt, transmission, creation, and/or edition of the selectedcommunication and/or content, the identities and/or addresses of theintended message recipients, and the identity and/or Universal ResourceLocator (“URL”) address (e.g., link or hyperlink) of a web accessibleresource to receive the selected communication and/or content.

The relevant policies and/or rules detected 356 include a pointer,indicator, reference, or link to or other type of electronic address ofthe policies and/or rules potentially impacted by or controlling theselected communication and/or content. The field may further include anindication of whether or not the policy or rule has been violated and atimestamp(s) indicating each instance of policy or rule violation.

The recommendation and/or decision field 360 indicates a recommendedaction to be taken by the control module 172 and/or a control module 172determined action to be taken in response to the selected communicationand/or content. The field may also include a rationale or reason for therecommendation and/or decision. The recommendation or decision may be,for example, what measures to be taken to comply with the relevantpolicies and/or rules or what actions to be taken when a relevant policyor rule has been violated. In security applications, the recommendationor decision can include, by way of illustration, a command to a modifyexisting security measures for the selected communication and/orcontent, implement new or additional security measures for the selectedcommunication and/or content, use a best network (which may differ fromthe network already indicated by the selected communication and/orcontent) to effect transmission or transfer of the selectedcommunication and/or content or otherwise comply with necessary securityrequirements, implement an action to be taken to remedy a prior policyor rule violation, block, delay, or buffer the selected communicationand/or content, mark or delete a portion of the selected communicationand/or content prior to access by one or more other parties, send anotice of policy and/or rule violation to one or more selecteddestinations, embed a flag indicating an area of redundant and processorintensive encryption or security transcoding to information technologystaff for process improvement, warn, discipline, and/or train thesubscriber potentially violating or violating the policy and/or rule,prevent access of a selected communication and/or content by anunprivileged user, prevent the subscriber from selecting, such as bydragging and dropping, the selected content into a communication,provide read-only access to the selected communication and/or content,set a hop restriction on a selected communication and/or content sothat, when the hop restriction is met or exceeded or a hop counter isincremented or decremented to a selected value, the selectedcommunication and/or content is dropped or otherwise prohibited fromdelivery to the intended recipient, tear down a communication channelbefore transmission of the selected communication and/or content,redirect the selected communication to a different destination, displaydifferent portions of the selected communication and/or content todifferent recipients/users based on the degrees of trust or privilegesof each such recipient or user, and successfully authenticate and/orvalidate the recipient(s) before access is permitted.

Use restriction(s) and/or permission(s) 364 refer to policy- orrule-based restriction(s) and/or permission(s) on the communicationnodes privileged to receive all or portion of the policy tag 300. Forexample, while certain portions of the policy tag 300 may be accessed bya subscriber's computer 168 or communication device 172, other portionscould be accessed only by the policy enforcement server 136 and/orspecified administrative personnel. In this manner, an unprivilegedsubscriber or other user could not access sensitive portions of thepolicy tag 300 via a corresponding policy agent 190.

In other configurations, a policy tag 300 associated with a documentincorporates the security provisions of the native system, such as adocument control system, and carries the provisions along with thedocument as the document is used. For example, a user may havepermission to access a document, but certain uses within the enterprisemay be blocked by carrying the permission and security information alongwith the document. While the document example is an illustrative one,this can obviously be extended to other file, attachment orcommunications payload types. This could be done via some form ofsteganography which could be enforced either by the communicationssub-system or the file sub-system.

EXAMPLES

To illustrate the operation of the policy enforcement server 136, policyagent 190, and policy tag 300, a number of examples will now bepresented. The examples assume that the policy enforcement server 136 isa centralized intelligence (processor, multiple processors with acommand structure, or equivalent) that coordinates overallcommunications security.

In a first example, the policy enforcement server 136 considerscommunication security requirements regardless of the form of thecommunication, for example, attachments, chat, email, IM, real time andpacket voice, real time and packet video, embedded links, access toinformation on venues, access to tools and the like, because the policyand/or rule may regulate one or both of the fact that the communicationis occurring and/or how the communication is occurring. Thisconsideration is done based on the information sent in the selectedcommunication and the network it is sent on. The policy tags 300 woulddescribe what controls or security measures were previously deemed to beappropriate. The selected communication would be intercepted, inspected,and policy filtered by a policy agent 190 in an intervening ororiginating enterprise communication node. By way of illustration, agovernment policy or rule may permit an employee to communicatesensitive information by a secure voice channel but prohibit theemployee from communicating the information by a text channel, such asemail or instant messaging. In certain cases the intercept would be donein a low latency method that does not reveal, to those involved in theselected communication and/or content exchange, the inspection andpolicy filtering being done.

In a second example, the selected communication and/or content ismulti-media, with each media presenting different security challenges.For example, the selected communication may include voice, text, andimages to be analyzed by an intercepting policy agent 190. AutomaticSpeech Recognition combined with a lexicon of problematic keywords wouldtranslate the voice portion to equivalent text to enable the policyenforcement server 136 to identify potential policy and/or ruleviolations. This determination can be done by a policy agent 190 in realtime or near real time speech communications.

In a third example, the policy agent 190 determines, based on thecorresponding policy tag(s) 300, whether any or all of the selectedcommunication and/or content and attachments thereto are encrypted,password, or otherwise security protected or have been compromised andoptionally whether the encryption, authentication or security protectionand/or protocol is in compliance with policies and/or rules. Thisdetermination can include, for instance, marking of files using simplemechanisms such as misspelled words in each copy to determine the sourceof a suspected leak. In one configuration, the existing securitymeasures, such as encryption or authentication, are assigned a securityrating to indicate a level or effectiveness of security. The rating canbe based upon any suitable metric, such as security capabilities,encryption strength, security application version or identity, and/ormixtures thereof. This enables a mix of security measures to be comparedto a benchmark threshold set forth in a policy or rule.

In a fourth example, the policy enforcement server 136, based on thecorresponding policy tag(s) 300, determines and selects, based on policyor rule requirements, a best (transport) network and/or communicationmode to effect transfer based on the communications and/or contentsecurity requirements. This assumes that a router has multiple paths orthe selected communication and/or content can be sent by multiplecommunication modes, each with an attendant security cost or rating.This parameter would effectively allow the information to be transmittedon the correct communications channel based on the security requirementsset forth in the policy or rule, the effective security of the channel,and trade-offs regarding other communications capabilities. Forinstance, the selection can be made by comparing a security cost and/orrating associated with a plurality of possible channels and/orcommunication modes against the policy or rule requirements to determinean optimal channel and/or communication node. A text message can beconverted to voice and sent via a digital (circuit-switched) voicechannel, sent via email, or sent via instant messaging. IP telephony canbe extremely feature rich but may be considered as a sub-optimal choicefor certain high sensitivity information where encrypted transmissionover the Public Switched Telephone Network (“PSTN”) could offeradvantages. With an overall communications security control structure,it is possible to select a transport network based not only on cost,reliability, bandwidth and other known criteria but also on other policytag 300 information, such as security requirements, the capabilities ofthe endpoints, and the communicating party identity, content andcontext.

In a fifth example, the policy enforcement server 136, based on thecorresponding policy tag(s) 300, considers whether the audience ispermitted to receive the communications or content independent ofwhether the audience is an individual or a group. The policy enforcementserver 136 determines whether the intended recipient or proposed useraccess listing, whether an individual or group, is privileged, ortrusted enough, to receive the selected communication and/or content.This can be done by a simple mapping operation in which the recipient oraccess list or description or attributes thereof is mapped against apermitted list or recipients or accessors or description or attributesthereof. If one or more members of the group is not privileged toreceive or access the selected communication and/or content,transmission or access can be limited only to privileged members of thegroup or the transmission or access can be blocked for all group membersexcept the originator/sender.

In a sixth example, the policy enforcement server 136 bases securityrequirements for a selected communication and/or content on a stimulus(e.g., time or event instance). The security requirement can be one ormore of an authentication requirement to access the selectedcommunication and/or content (e.g., whether authentication is requiredand what degree and/or type(s) of authentication is required), alimitation on potential recipients of the selected communication and/orcontent (e.g., whether a black list, white list, or access control listis required and, if required, the definition of the list), and acryptography requirement (e.g., whether cryptography is required and, ifso, the specific cryptographic requirement(s) (such as one or more ofsymmetric-key cryptography (such as block or stream ciphers),asymmetric-key cryptography (such as public-key cryptography),cryptographic hash function, message authentication code, cryptographicprimitive, cryptosystem, and encryption level and/or strength). Otherstimulus-triggered security requirements include the performance and/ornonperformance of any of the policy measures referenced elsewhere inthis disclosure.

By way of illustration, the policy enforcement server 136 would comparethe date, time and content of a communication against certain temporalfactors that act as gates for transmission, dissemination, publication,or access of the selected communication and/or content. In a furtherillustration, the policy enforcement server 136 would remove securityrestrictions on the selected communication and/or content if it werelocated at a publicly accessible venue on the Internet. In other words,the degree of security, or security measures, are temporally- orevent-based or dependent. Transmission, dissemination, publication, oraccess of the selected communication and/or content can be restricted orprevented until a temporal trigger, or date and time, or event occurs,after which the transmission, dissemination, publication, or access ofthe selected communication and/or content is subject to different(usually lesser) restrictions. By way of illustration, prior to aproduct's release date certain information about the product ismaintained in confidence, and would be so maintained by the policyenforcement server 136, but after the product's release date the sameinformation is no longer maintained in confidence and its disseminationand distribution would not be restricted by the policy enforcementserver 136. In a further illustration, release of a user's guide priorto, but not after, the product availability announcement would beblocked. In these illustrations, project temporal information fromproject management applications, personal temporal information fromscheduling applications, and the like, are tied together to determinewhen the release of certain information is either premature or timely.

In a seventh example, the policy enforcement server 136 would considerthe intended venue of the selected communication and/or content andvenue context as it impacts the appropriateness of communication and/orcontent sharing. The venue would be a function of many factors, such asthe public accessibility of the venue and the trustworthiness of thetransmission channel for the selected communication and/or content. Byway of illustration, if a user compose mode is offered by the policyagent 190, the policy enforcement server 136 would consider contentversus venue prior to allowing the information to be posted and, ifnecessary, prevent a subscriber from posting the selected communicationand/or content on a social network 124 or other web accessible resource132, such as a blog or micro-blog. This is superior to the use of webscrapers to detect a post that is not in an organization's bestinterests. The configuration of the policy agent 190 in a driver can bea highly effective enforcement mechanism in this example.

In an eighth example, the policy enforcement server 136, using astimulus-based (e.g., temporally limited or event-based) definitions oftrusted groups, conditionally sends sensitive information to a partyoutside of the normal sphere of trust (e.g., the enterprise premises)without (persistently) extending firewall permissions or a persistentsecurity application to such a party or raises or lowers a securityrequirement associated with a selected communication and/or content.This assumes that the subscriber and/or enterprise already has a trustedrelationship with the party, e.g., by virtue of a nondisclosure orconfidentiality agreement or other agreement with the party. Thedefinition of a trusted group, for instance, can be changed (e.g.,limited, expanded, created, or disbanded) temporally to a specified dateor time or be event- and/or topic-based, such as execution, termination,or expiration of an agreement or term or condition thereof, project,realization of a project goal, and the like. This operation merelyextends a time-bound link to the party, with the expiration and/ordeletion of information sent or available to the party. For example,both ends (or ending nodes) of the conditional extension could featureauthentication, and encryption and would gate communications and contentbased on some pre-defined parameters at the time of set-up. A timeand/or topic bound push of software is made to the partner. Once thetopic is wound up or once a timer has expired, a heartbeat that has beenkeeping the security mechanism (software) open triggers an automaticdelete function in the application software or otherwise disables thesoftware. Other licensing-type mechanisms can be employed. Themechanisms would, for instance, require the software to requestperiodically the policy enforcement server 136 for permission toexecute. When the respective trusted group member was no longer entitledto access the selected communication and/or content and therefore thesoftware, the policy enforcement server 136 would deny permission toexecute using security mechanisms known in licensing. As a result, onewould not have to worry about administration of temporary virtualprivate network access and/or audits after the fact to remove accesscapabilities. There could be the ability to pre-maturely terminate suchaccess, if associates working with the partner and/or security staffdetermine that there is a risk. This can be done using two securitycontrollers to negotiate access control or by provisioning the remotepartner in an extended global address list. The latter method wouldallow revocation more easily by controlling the expiration date ofcertain context as well as certain content.

In a ninth example, the policy enforcement server 136 broadcasts alertsto the members of a defined group when intrusive treats or malwareinside or outside the firewall are detected and provides the alerts viathe most effective mode and/or media. This can be done by integratingfirewall intrusion detection access control systems into the controlflow of the communications, such as by incorporating this type of systeminto a policy agent 190 in a firewall or gateway 144.

In a tenth example, the policy enforcement server 136 detects a malwareor intrusive treat in an email. While it can send a broadcast notice orwarning, by email, to the recipients that the identified email containsa malware or intrusive treat, the email may already be in thecommunication stack and such a warning would not notify timely the user.To avoid this problem, the policy enforcement server 136 can send thenotice or warning by a different communication modality, transportnetwork, and/or channel, such as voice mail, instant message, and thelike. The decision on what communication modality, transport network, orchannel to use can be determined based upon the presence of thepotentially impacted users, the time zone differences between thephysical locations of the impacted users, and the like. For instance, ifa potentially impacted user is currently present on his or her digitalvoice phone and the virus, malware or treat was sent by email the policyenforcement server 136 can send by automated voice message or call thenotice or warning to the desk phone. The notice or warning woulddescribe the email by the header, such as by receipt time, send time,sender, recipient(s), regarding line, and the like. Alternatively, theemail could be quarantined.

In a final example, the policy enforcement server 136 flags areas ofredundant and processor intensive encryption, security transcoding, orother security measures to information technology staff for securitymeasure improvement or modification. This could be implemented usingpolicy agents 190 in each intermediate router and other node (such asthe gateway 144 (or firewall) and telecommunication switch/server 140),and the endpoints. When substantive work is performed on the selectedcommunication to transmit the communication, the tag is updated toreflect the nature of the substantive work. The tag could include adedicated field for this purpose. The policy enforcement server 136would review this field and make appropriate changes to the securitymeasures to reduce the level of substantive work. Work could bedescribed in a suitable terminology or metric, such as computationalresource utilization (e.g., CPU, network bandwidth, and/or memory usageor requirements). The security improvement or modification could be byre-negotiation of the security measure(s) applied over all or part ofthe channel.

The above list of examples is not exhaustive or limiting. As will beappreciated, the system 100 discussed above can perform an endlessvariety of functions or activities, of which the above examplesrepresent only a part.

As will be appreciated, any or all of these modules or data can belocated alternatively, partially, or in combination, within the internalnetwork 178, in memories of the first, second, . . . pth computers 168a-p and/or of the first, second, . . . nth communication devices 172 a-nand, within the external network 108, on one or more nodes.

Operations of Policy Enforcement Server and Policy Agents

The operations of the policy enforcement server 136 and policy agents190 will now be discussed with reference to FIGS. 4-7.

Referring to FIG. 4, the policy agent 190, in step 400, initiatesoperation upon detection of a stimulus, such as receipt or selection(attempted access or appendage) of an incoming communication and/orattachment thereto by a subscriber corresponding to the devicecontaining the policy agent 190, creation or attempted transmission ofan outgoing communication and/or attachment thereto by the subscriber,creation, modification, and/or selection (attempted access or appendage)of selected content, and the like.

In response, the search, analysis and/or tagging module 200 analyzes, instep 404, the selected communication and/or content and context thereof.

In step 408, the search, analysis and/or tagging module 200 identifiespertinent policy factors and metadata relating to the selectedcommunication and/or content.

In step 412, the search, analysis and/or tagging module 200 updatesand/or generates policy tags 300 for the selected communication and/orcontent.

In step 416, the search, analysis and/or tagging module 200 forwards,via the messaging interface 212, the tagged communication and/or contentand other information to the policy enforcement server 136.

Referring to FIG. 5, the analysis module 184 in the policy enforcementserver 136 receives the policy tagged communication and/or content andother information, which receipt is detection of the stimulus in step500.

In step 504, the analysis module 184 analyzes the selected communicationand/or content and appended policy tag 300.

In step 508, the analysis module 184 determines metadata relating to theselected communication and content.

In step 512, the analysis module 184 identifies pertinent policy factorsrelating to the selected communication and/or content. This step mayfurther include a search by the analysis module 184 for other similarpolicy tagged communications or content by the same or other subscribersin the enterprise network 104.

In step 516, the analysis module 184 updates or generates policy tag(s)300 on the selected communication and/or content.

In step 520, the analysis module 184 forwards the tagged communicationand/or content and other information to the control module 172.

Referring to FIG. 6, the control module 172 receives the policy taggedcommunication and/or content and other information, which receipt isdetection of the stimulus in step 600.

In step 604, the control module 172 retrieves from the security policyengine 176 the appropriate policies and rules, if needed.

In step 608, the control module 172 maps the pertinent policies andrules to identified policy factors in the policy tag(s) 300 to determineproposed policy measures. This step may further include a search by thecontrol module 172 for other similar policy tagged communications orcontent by the same or other subscribers in the enterprise network 104to investigate a behavioral pattern.

In decision diamond 612, the control module 172 determines whether theselected communication and/or content has an existing or proposed policymeasure(s).

When the selected communication and/or content does not have an existingor user proposed policy measure, the control module 172, in step 616,applies policy measures proposed by the policy enforcement server 136.

When the selected communication and/or content does have an existing oruser proposed policy measure, the control module 172, in decisiondiamond 620, determines whether the existing or user proposed policymeasures are appropriate. If not, the control module 172 proceeds tostep 616. If so, or after performance of step 616, the control module172 proceeds to step 624.

In step 624, the control module 172 directly or indirectly notifies thepolicy enforcement module 208 in the reporting policy agent 190 of anyproposed policy measure(s). In response, the policy enforcement module208 implements the policy measure(s).

In step 628, the control module 172 notifies the administrative module180 of any policy and/or rule violation.

Referring to FIG. 7, the administrative module 180 receives the commandfrom the control module 172, which receipt acts as the stimulus in step700.

In step 704, the administrative module 180 determines and maps therelevant policies and/or rules to the policy and/or rule violation todetermine a response.

In step 708, the administrative module 180 logs the policy violation anddetermined response.

In step 712, the administrative module 180 implements the determinedresponse.

The exemplary systems and methods of this disclosure have been describedin relation to a distributed processing network. However, to avoidunnecessarily obscuring the present disclosure, the precedingdescription omits a number of known structures and devices. Thisomission is not to be construed as a limitation of the scopes of theclaims. Specific details are set forth to provide an understanding ofthe present disclosure. It should however be appreciated that thepresent disclosure may be practiced in a variety of ways beyond thespecific detail set forth herein.

Furthermore, while the exemplary aspects, embodiments, and/orconfigurations illustrated herein show the various components of thesystem collocated, certain components of the system can be locatedremotely, at distant portions of a distributed network, such as a LANand/or the Internet, or within a dedicated system. Thus, it should beappreciated, that the components of the system can be combined in to oneor more devices, such as a server, or collocated on a particular node ofa distributed network, such as an analog and/or digitaltelecommunications network, a packet-switch network, or acircuit-switched network. It will be appreciated from the precedingdescription, and for reasons of computational efficiency, that thecomponents of the system can be arranged at any location within adistributed network of components without affecting the operation of thesystem. For example, the various components can be located in a switchsuch as a PBX and media server, gateway, in one or more communicationsdevices, at one or more users' premises, or some combination thereofSimilarly, one or more functional portions of the system could bedistributed between a telecommunications device(s) and an associatedcomputing device.

Furthermore, it should be appreciated that the various links connectingthe elements can be wired or wireless links, or any combination thereof,or any other known or later developed element(s) that is capable ofsupplying and/or communicating data to and from the connected elements.These wired or wireless links can also be secure links and may becapable of communicating encrypted information. Transmission media usedas links, for example, can be any suitable carrier for electricalsignals, including coaxial cables, copper wire and fiber optics, and maytake the form of acoustic or light waves, such as those generated duringradio-wave and infra-red data communications.

Also, while the flowcharts have been discussed and illustrated inrelation to a particular sequence of events, it should be appreciatedthat changes, additions, and omissions to this sequence can occurwithout materially affecting the operation of the disclosed embodiments,configuration, and aspects.

A number of variations and modifications of the disclosure can be used.It would be possible to provide for some features of the disclosurewithout providing others.

In yet another embodiment, the systems and methods of this disclosurecan be implemented in conjunction with a special purpose computer, aprogrammed microprocessor or microcontroller and peripheral integratedcircuit element(s), an ASIC or other integrated circuit, a digitalsignal processor, a hard-wired electronic or logic circuit such asdiscrete element circuit, a programmable logic device or gate array suchas PLD, PLA, FPGA, PAL, special purpose computer, any comparable means,or the like. In general, any device(s) or means capable of implementingthe methodology illustrated herein can be used to implement the variousaspects of this disclosure. Exemplary hardware that can be used for thedisclosed embodiments, configurations and aspects includes computers,handheld devices, telephones (e.g., cellular, Internet enabled, digital,analog, hybrids, and others), and other hardware known in the art. Someof these devices include processors (e.g., a single or multiplemicroprocessors), memory, nonvolatile storage, input devices, and outputdevices. Furthermore, alternative software implementations including,but not limited to, distributed processing or component/objectdistributed processing, parallel processing, or virtual machineprocessing can also be constructed to implement the methods describedherein.

In yet another embodiment, the disclosed methods may be readilyimplemented in conjunction with software using object or object-orientedsoftware development environments that provide portable source code thatcan be used on a variety of computer or workstation platforms.Alternatively, the disclosed system may be implemented partially orfully in hardware using standard logic circuits or VLSI design. Whethersoftware or hardware is used to implement the systems in accordance withthis disclosure is dependent on the speed and/or efficiency requirementsof the system, the particular function, and the particular software orhardware systems or microprocessor or microcomputer systems beingutilized.

In yet another embodiment, the disclosed methods may be partiallyimplemented in software that can be stored on a storage medium, executedon programmed general-purpose computer with the cooperation of acontroller and memory, a special purpose computer, a microprocessor, orthe like. In these instances, the systems and methods of this disclosurecan be implemented as program embedded on personal computer such as anapplet, JAVA® or CGI script, as a resource residing on a server orcomputer workstation, as a routine embedded in a dedicated measurementsystem, system component, or the like. The system can also beimplemented by physically incorporating the system and/or method into asoftware and/or hardware system.

Although the present disclosure describes components and functionsimplemented in the aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations withreference to particular standards and protocols, the aspects,embodiments, and/or configurations are not limited to such standards andprotocols. Other similar standards and protocols not mentioned hereinare in existence and are considered to be included in the presentdisclosure. Moreover, the standards and protocols mentioned herein andother similar standards and protocols not mentioned herein areperiodically superseded by faster or more effective equivalents havingessentially the same functions. Such replacement standards and protocolshaving the same functions are considered equivalents included in thepresent disclosure.

The present disclosure, in various aspects, embodiments, and/orconfigurations, includes components, methods, processes, systems and/orapparatus substantially as depicted and described herein, includingvarious aspects, embodiments, configurations embodiments,subcombinations, and/or subsets thereof. Those of skill in the art willunderstand how to make and use the disclosed aspects, embodiments,and/or configurations after understanding the present disclosure. Thepresent disclosure, in various aspects, embodiments, and/orconfigurations, includes providing devices and processes in the absenceof items not depicted and/or described herein or in various aspects,embodiments, and/or configurations hereof, including in the absence ofsuch items as may have been used in previous devices or processes, e.g.,for improving performance, achieving ease and\or reducing cost ofimplementation.

The foregoing discussion has been presented for purposes of illustrationand description. The foregoing is not intended to limit the disclosureto the form or forms disclosed herein. In the foregoing DetailedDescription for example, various features of the disclosure are groupedtogether in one or more aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations forthe purpose of streamlining the disclosure. The features of the aspects,embodiments, and/or configurations of the disclosure may be combined inalternate aspects, embodiments, and/or configurations other than thosediscussed above. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted asreflecting an intention that the claims require more features than areexpressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claimsreflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a singleforegoing disclosed aspect, embodiment, and/or configuration. Thus, thefollowing claims are hereby incorporated into this Detailed Description,with each claim standing on its own as a separate preferred embodimentof the disclosure.

Moreover, though the description has included description of one or moreaspects, embodiments, and/or configurations and certain variations andmodifications, other variations, combinations, and modifications arewithin the scope of the disclosure, e.g., as may be within the skill andknowledge of those in the art, after understanding the presentdisclosure. It is intended to obtain rights which include alternativeaspects, embodiments, and/or configurations to the extent permitted,including alternate, interchangeable and/or equivalent structures,functions, ranges or steps to those claimed, whether or not suchalternate, interchangeable and/or equivalent structures, functions,ranges or steps are disclosed herein, and without intending to publiclydedicate any patentable subject matter.

1. A method, comprising: providing an enterprise network having aplurality of subscribers, a plurality of nodes, each node comprising apolicy agent to monitor and/or track behavior of the respective nodeand/or a subscriber associated with the respective node, and a policyenforcement server to enforce polices and/or rules of an enterprisecorresponding to the enterprise network; determining, by a first policyagent corresponding to a first node and first subscriber, a behavioralinstance potentially relevant to a policy and/or rule; notifying, by thefirst policy agent, the policy enforcement server of the determinedbehavioral instance; and applying, by the policy enforcement server, apolicy and/or rule to the determined behavioral instance, whereby apolicy measure is implemented.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thebehavioral instance is the first subscriber intending to make the one ormore of a selected communication and content accessible to one or moreselected parties and wherein the applying step comprises the sub-steps:receiving, by the policy enforcement server, a policy tag respecting oneor more of the selected communication and content and wherein the policytag comprises one or more of the following: a persona and/or role of thefirst subscriber, a persona and/or role of the one or more selectedparties, a degree of trust of the enterprise network with the firstsubscriber and/or one or more selected parties, a capability,provisioning, and/or preference of a communication device of the firstsubscriber and/or the one or more selected parties, a context of thefirst subscriber and/or the one or more selected parties, a context ofthe communication device of the first subscriber and/or the one or moreselected parties, an existing policy compliance measure selected by thefirst subscriber for the one or more of the selected communication andcontent, a venue for the one or more of the selected communication andcontent to be made accessible to the one or more selected parties, adescription of the one or more of the selected communication andcontent, a context of the selected communication and/or content, and apolicy and/or rule relevant to the one or more of the selectedcommunication and content; and determining, by the policy enforcementserver and based on the policy tag, an applicable policy and/or rule;and determining, by the policy enforcement server and based on theapplicable policy and/or rule, a policy measure to be implemented. 3.The method of claim 2, wherein the first node is a first communicationdevice, wherein the policy agent is in a class driver, wherein thepolicy tag comprises one or more of a persona and/or role of the one ormore selected parties and a persona and/or role of the first subscriber,and wherein the persona and/or role is defined by one or more of thefollowing: employer name, user level, user organization, thesubscriber's business-related electronic addresses, satellite-basedphysical location coordinates associated with a business location, Webbrowsed URL's corresponding with business interests, times-of-dayassociated with business time, days-of-week associated with businesstime, contact lists of business associates, client, supplier, customer,family member name, the first subscriber's personal electronicaddresses, satellite-based physical location coordinates associated withpersonal location, Web browsed URL's corresponding with personalinterests, times-of-day associated with personal time, days-of-weekassociated with personal time, contact list of friends, hobby supplier,charitable organization, and other volunteer activity.
 4. The method ofclaim 2, wherein the first node is a first communication device, whereinthe policy tag comprises a degree of trust of the enterprise networkwith the one or more selected parties, and wherein the one or moreselected parties is no longer trusted upon occurrence of a determinedevent and/or passage of determined time.
 5. The method of claim 2,wherein the first node is a first communication device, wherein thepolicy agent is in a class driver, and wherein the policy tag comprisesone or more of a context of the first subscriber and/or the one or moreselected parties and a context of the first communication device of thefirst subscriber and/or a communication device of the one or moreselected parties.
 6. The method of claim 2, wherein the first node is afirst communication device, wherein the policy agent is in a classdriver, and wherein the policy tag comprises one or more of acapability, provisioning, and/or preference of the first communicationdevice of the first subscriber and/or a communication device of the oneor more selected parties and an existing policy compliance measureselected by the first subscriber for the one or more of the selectedcommunication and content.
 7. The method of claim 2, wherein the firstnode is a first communication device, wherein the policy agent is in aclass driver, wherein the policy tag comprises a venue for the one ormore of the selected communication and content to be made accessible tothe one or more selected parties, and wherein the venue comprises one ofa blog, micro-blog, Really Simple Syndication (“RSS”) feed, chat room,social network posting, news aggregator, and private party.
 8. Themethod of claim 2, wherein the policy measure to be implementedcomprises one or more of the following: modification of an existingsecurity measure for the one or more of the selected communicationand/or content, implementation of a new and/or additional securitymeasure for the one or more of the selected communication and/orcontent, use of a different network path and/or channel than currentlychosen to effect transmission or transfer of the one or more of theselected communication and/or content, implementation of an action toremedy a prior policy or rule violation, block, delay, and/or buffer theone or more of the selected communication and/or content, mark or deletea portion of the one or more of the selected communication and/orcontent prior to access by one or more other parties, send a notice ofpolicy and/or rule violation to one or more selected destinations, embeda flag indicating an area of redundant and processor intensiveencryption or security transcoding, prevent access of the one or more ofthe selected communication and/or content by the one or more selectedparties, prevent the first subscriber from selecting, such as bydragging and dropping, selected content into a communication, provideread-only access to the one or more of the selected communication and/orcontent, set a hop restriction on the one or more of the selectedcommunication and/or content whereby, when the hop restriction is met orexceeded and/or a hop counter is incremented or decremented to aselected value, the one or more of the selected communication and/orcontent is dropped or otherwise prohibited from delivery to an intendedrecipient, tear down a communication channel before transmission of theone or more of the selected communication and/or content, redirect theone or more of the selected communication and/or content to a differentdestination, and display different portions of the one or more of theselected communication and/or content to different ones of the one ormore of the selected parties based on a respective degree of trust orprivilege of each party.
 9. A non-transitory computer readable mediumcomprising processor executable instructions to perform the determining,notifying and applying steps of claim
 1. 10. A system, comprising: anenterprise network having a plurality of subscribers, a plurality ofnodes, and a policy enforcement server to enforce polices and/or rulesof an enterprise corresponding to the enterprise network; wherein: eachnode comprises a respective policy agent to monitor and/or trackbehavior of the respective node and/or a subscriber associated with therespective node, a first policy agent of the plurality of policy agentscorresponds to a first node and first subscriber and identifies abehavioral instance potentially relevant to a policy and/or rule; thefirst policy agent notifies the policy enforcement server of thedetermined behavioral instance; and the policy enforcement serverapplies a policy and/or rule to the determined behavioral instance,whereby a policy measure is implemented.
 11. The system of claim 10,wherein the behavioral instance is the first subscriber intending tomake the one or more of a selected communication and content accessibleto one or more selected parties and wherein the applying operationcomprises the sub-operations: receiving a policy tag respecting one ormore of the selected communication and content and wherein the policytag comprises one or more of the following: a persona and/or role of thefirst subscriber, a persona and/or role of the one or more selectedparties, a degree of trust of the enterprise network with the firstsubscriber and/or one or more selected parties, a capability,provisioning, and/or preference of a communication device of the firstsubscriber and/or the one or more selected parties, a context of thefirst subscriber and/or the one or more selected parties, a context ofthe communication device of the first subscriber and/or the one or moreselected parties, an existing policy compliance measure selected by thefirst subscriber for the one or more of the selected communication andcontent, a venue for the one or more of the selected communication andcontent to be made accessible to the one or more selected parties, adescription of the one or more of the selected communication andcontent, a context of the selected communication and/or content, and apolicy and/or rule relevant to the one or more of the selectedcommunication and content; and determine, based on the policy tag, anapplicable policy and/or rule; and determine, based on the applicablepolicy and/or rule, a policy measure to be implemented.
 12. The systemof claim 11, wherein the first node is a first communication device,wherein the policy agent is in a class driver, wherein the policy tagcomprises one or more of a persona and/or role of the one or moreselected parties and a persona and/or role of the first subscriber, andwherein the persona and/or role is defined by one or more of thefollowing: employer name, user level, user organization, thesubscriber's business-related electronic addresses, satellite-basedphysical location coordinates associated with a business location, Webbrowsed URL's corresponding with business interests, times-of-dayassociated with business time, days-of-week associated with businesstime, contact lists of business associates, client, supplier, customer,family member name, the first subscriber's personal electronicaddresses, satellite-based physical location coordinates associated withpersonal location, Web browsed URL's corresponding with personalinterests, times-of-day associated with personal time, days-of-weekassociated with personal time, contact list of friends, hobby supplier,charitable organization, and other volunteer activity.
 13. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the first node is a first communication device,wherein the policy tag comprises a degree of trust of the enterprisenetwork with the one or more selected parties, and wherein the one ormore selected parties is no longer trusted upon occurrence of adetermined event and/or passage of determined time.
 14. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the first node is a first communication device,wherein the policy agent is in a class driver, and wherein the policytag comprises one or more of a context of the first subscriber and/orthe one or more selected parties and a context of the firstcommunication device of the first subscriber and/or a communicationdevice of the one or more selected parties.
 15. The system of claim 11,wherein the first node is a first communication device, wherein thepolicy agent is in a class driver, and wherein the policy tag comprisesone or more of a capability, provisioning, and/or preference of thefirst communication device of the first subscriber and/or acommunication device of the one or more selected parties and an existingpolicy compliance measure selected by the first subscriber for the oneor more of the selected communication and content.
 16. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the first node is a first communication device,wherein the policy agent is in a class driver, wherein the policy tagcomprises a venue for the one or more of the selected communication andcontent to be made accessible to the one or more selected parties, andwherein the venue comprises one of a blog, micro-blog, Really SimpleSyndication (“RSS”) feed, chat room, social network posting, newsaggregator, and private party.
 17. The system of claim 11, wherein thepolicy measure to be implemented comprises one or more of the following:modification of an existing security measure for the one or more of theselected communication and/or content, implementation of a new and/oradditional security measure for the one or more of the selectedcommunication and/or content, use of a different network path and/orchannel than currently chosen to effect transmission or transfer of theone or more of the selected communication and/or content, implementationof an action to remedy a prior policy or rule violation, block, delay,and/or buffer the one or more of the selected communication and/orcontent, mark or delete a portion of the one or more of the selectedcommunication and/or content prior to access by one or more otherparties, send a notice of policy and/or rule violation to one or moreselected destinations, embed a flag indicating an area of redundant andprocessor intensive encryption or security transcoding, prevent accessof the one or more of the selected communication and/or content by theone or more selected parties, prevent the first subscriber fromselecting, such as by dragging and dropping, selected content into acommunication, provide read-only access to the one or more of theselected communication and/or content, set a hop restriction on the oneor more of the selected communication and/or content whereby, when thehop restriction is met or exceeded and/or a hop counter is incrementedor decremented to a selected value, the one or more of the selectedcommunication and/or content is dropped or otherwise prohibited fromdelivery to an intended recipient, tear down a communication channelbefore transmission of the one or more of the selected communicationand/or content, redirect the one or more of the selected communicationand/or content to a different destination, and display differentportions of the one or more of the selected communication and/or contentto different ones of the one or more of the selected parties based on arespective degree of trust or privilege of each party.
 18. Anon-transitory computer readable medium, comprising: a machine readablepolicy tag related to an actual or potential violation of a rule and/orpolicy by a subscriber of an enterprise network, comprising at least oneof the following fields: a subscriber and/or role persona field defininga persona and/or role of the subscriber at the time of the actual orpotential violation; a nonsubscriber and/or role persona field defininga persona and/or role of a nonsubscriber involved in and at the time ofthe actual or potential violation; a degree of trust field defining adegree of trust of the enterprise network and/or the subscriber with aperson and/or computational entity having or to have access to aselected communication and/or content associated with the actual orpotential violation, the person and/or computational entity beinginvolved in the actual or potential rule violation; an existing policyand/or rule compliance measure field describing a measure currently inplace to comply with the actually or potentially violated rule and/orpolicy; a venue field defining a degree of public exposure and/orsecurity of an intended recipient of the selected communication and/orcontent, the intended recipient being involved in the actual orpotential violation; a context field describing a context of thesubscriber and/or other entity having access to the selectedcommunication and/or content; a content description field describing theselected communication and/or content, the content descriptiondescribing the content in terms of the rule and/or policy actually orpotentially violated; a policy and/or rule field identifying the policyand/or rule actually or potentially violated; and a recommendationand/or decision field indicating a recommended action to be taken inresponse to the actual or potential violation.
 19. The medium of claim18, wherein the policy tag comprises the degree of trust field, whereinthe degree of trust is associated with a defined group of entities, andwherein the group members comprise entities that are not subscribers toor otherwise part of the enterprise network.
 20. The medium of claim 18,wherein the policy tag comprises at least one of the existing policyand/or rule compliance measure and recommendation and/or decision fieldsand wherein the at least one of the existing policy and/or rulecompliance measure and recommendation and/or decision fields comprisesone or more of the following actions: modification of an existingsecurity measure for the one or more of the selected communicationand/or content, implementation of a new and/or additional securitymeasure for the one or more of the selected communication and/orcontent, use of a different network path and/or channel than currentlychosen to effect transmission or transfer of the one or more of theselected communication and/or content, implementation of an action toremedy a prior policy or rule violation, block, delay, and/or buffer theone or more of the selected communication and/or content, mark or deletea portion of the one or more of the selected communication and/orcontent prior to access by one or more other parties, send a notice ofpolicy and/or rule violation to one or more selected destinations, embeda flag indicating an area of redundant and processor intensiveencryption or security transcoding, prevent access of the one or more ofthe selected communication and/or content by the one or more selectedparties, prevent the first subscriber from selecting, such as bydragging and dropping, selected content into a communication, provideread-only access to the one or more of the selected communication and/orcontent, set a hop restriction on the one or more of the selectedcommunication and/or content whereby, when the hop restriction is met orexceeded and/or a hop counter is incremented or decremented to aselected value, the one or more of the selected communication and/orcontent is dropped or otherwise prohibited from delivery to an intendedrecipient, tear down a communication channel before transmission of theone or more of the selected communication and/or content, redirect theone or more of the selected communication and/or content to a differentdestination, and display different portions of the one or more of theselected communication and/or content to different ones of the one ormore of the selected parties based on a respective degree of trust orprivilege of each party.